


Major-League Weird

by oddmonster



Category: Eerie Indiana
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-29
Updated: 2012-12-29
Packaged: 2017-11-22 21:19:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/614444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oddmonster/pseuds/oddmonster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Eerie, Indiana, there's normal-weird, and then there's major-league weird. Marshall Teller finds out the difference between the two when Dash spends the night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Major-League Weird

**Author's Note:**

  * For [der_tanzer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/der_tanzer/gifts).



Eerie in the summer was something to behold, something hot and humid and still and almost quiet, if you could get past the tentacles slithering about under the door of the Eerie Bait Shop and Sushi Bar, or the fact that down the block, Mrs Langolier and her shih t'zu both had the same blue hairdo, only the dog spoke in complete sentences.

But as far as Marshall was concerned, these things were sort of baseline summer Eerie. They were almost normal Eerie if you didn't look too close.

A Thursday night in June and the air was heavy with the promise of thunderstorms in the corn, full and round and just waiting for their moment to strike.

Julie had rented some sort of serious movie for her Civics class, something about a woman who told everyone what was really going on at a nuclear power plant and then disappeared, but when you live in Eerie, that sort of Hollywood story doesn't play very far. Simon left early on his skateboard and Marshall left as soon as he could, headed up to the relative quiet of his room.

Heat rises. He should probably remember that next time, but at lights out the air was still close and warm and almost wet, and Marshall left the window open, hoping for a breeze. Hoping the storm would break in the night, bringing some relief from the heat.

What he got instead was, of course, Dash.

The shy silent time of night and Marshall wakes at the sound of Dash cursing under his breath, that voice he knows so well, rough and raw on his ears then Dash falls, the weight of his body rough and really really heavy on his legs. There's tangling, and only a thin cotton sheet between them.

"Sorry," Dash rasps. "But you should really think about making your room more, you know, inviting."

"It's not every night someone crashes through the window. Come to think of it, Dash, this is the first time." He pushed Dash, hard, palms against trenchcoat. "What gives?"

Dash rolled his eyes. "Certainly not your window, that's for sure. But I was curious."

"Yeah? About what?"

"About what you'd get up to on a night like this."

"Like what?" Marshall asks, at the same time his brain asks: _who wears a trenchcoat in heat like this?_

"Like this, a night that, you know."

"No I don't know, Dash, that's why I'm asking."

Despite having kicked off his sneakers, Dash scrabbles on the covers, making for the window. "Look. Forget I was ever here, okay? Just forget it."

Trenchcoats are good for grabbing. That's one thing.

Dash falls heavily back to the bed, sprawling over Marshall's legs. "Ow!"

"Ssh!"

"Your--"

"Yeah your family, yeah, I get it." Dash sits up, wincing, and Marshall suddenly feels sorry for him, remembering he has only a sleeping bag in a haunted barn, with maybe if he's lucky, the ghost of the worst bank robber in the West to keep him company.

"C'mon. You can sleep on the floor."

"Gee thanks, Teller."

"Fine. The window's that way."

Dash doesn't say anything, so Marshall returns to extracting his legs out from under Dash's weight, the tangle of them uncomfortable in an unfamiliar way. He gets up and crosses to his closet, pulls out his worn Hamburglar sleeping bag, pilled from washing but softer than anything he can name. He unrolls it with a flourish and tosses the pillow from his bed on top. "Here."

Dash looks...

Marshall can't put a name to the look, but it resonates, deep inside.

"Thanks," Dash says eventually. He makes no move to leave Marshall's bed so Marshall crawls back in around him. It’s awkward and too warm and feels strangely good. The thin sheet draped over him, Marshall asks, “So, you think anything weird’ll happen tonight?”

Dash snorts. “What, you mean other than the fact that I saw Mr Osgood driving along Cherry Street at the same time he was standing on his porch, waving? Or are we talking major league weird?”

Marshall considers. “Let’s say major leagues. Just for tonight.”

Dash looks at Marshall a little strangely. “Okay, just for tonight.”

A long pause hangs between them.

Dash slides down onto the sleeping bag next to Marshall’s bed, looking a little self-conscious. After a few moments, he lays down, then Marshall does too, on the bed next to him.

“Major league weird,” Marshall says after a few more moments.

“Yeah.”

“Right.”

Dash clears his throat again and Marshall wonders if he’s coming down with something. “You know that place in the park, downtown, where there used to be the giant birdbath in the shape of a pair of binoculars?”

“Sure.”

“Run over by fat old men in suits, muttering and wielding cameras, talking about ‘remaining light’ and ‘appropriate ambiance’.”

“Weird.”

“Definitely. Oh, and I could’ve sworn I saw a real dragon next to Crispy Noodle Black Dragon. Or maybe it was just the tail.”

“Now you’re just making things up.”

“Am I?” Marshall can hear Dash smiling.

“Probably.”

There’s quiet after that, but the night feels a little cooler, even as the crickets sing otherwise, tense and hysterical through the open window. Marshall’s eyes get heavy, but he has to admit, he’s enjoying having Dash here, the two of them slow and easy in the heat, in the night.

The last thing Marshall remembers before he falls asleep is Dash telling him about this giant bottle of milk, way out at the edge of town, near the highway, then things get a little weird.

Marshall’s almost positive he‘s sleeping, but at some point he senses Dash get up from his sleeping bag. He hears the rustle of trenchcoat and the softer shush of cotton sheet then...Dash is next to him, in his bed. He can feel the heat from Dash’s skin, his thighs and his stomach, one arm thrown heavily around Marshall’s waist, under his own, a warm weight against his ribs, a patch of warmer, damp and angular heat pressed Marshall’s tailbone.

The sensation is...

Not weird at all.

Marshall wakes a few times in the night and each time Dash is there, curled against him, warm and needy like a puppy. He’s soft and hard in equal measures, and his hand stays curled in a fist under Marshall’s ribs, hanging on tight. Each time Marshall moves in his sleep, he feels Dash right there, strong and unbending and hanging on.

Sometime during the night, a storm rips the sky open, thunder and lightning and rain -- soft cooling rain -- falling over all of Eerie. Marshall grins in his sleep and holds Dash’s curled fist in his hand.

But in the morning, Marshall wakes up alone. His window is closed and the heat of the day has already begun to rise, thick tendrils of sun slipping across the edge of the bed and the sleeping bag that hasn’t been slept in.

Then again, waking up next to Dash X?

That would be major league weird. Even for Eerie.


End file.
